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That was the question posed by Kimm Alfonso of Etsy's Seller
Education during today's Town Hall event where the ecommerce site
announced major changes to the way its handmade community
operates.

The question came as a response to Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson
announcement of three big policy changes that effect sellers. The
new polices allow sellers to:

1. Hire staff. Etsy sellers are now allowed to
hire help in creating the items that they sell and those
employees can live anywhere. Previously sellers could have their
shops shut down if they had help from people in other parts of
the county or world.

2. Use shipping services. Sellers will be able
to use outside shipping and fulfillment services. They will no
longer be required to personally ship all of their items.

3. Use manufacturers. Etsy sellers will be
allowed to use outside manufacturers to produce the designs they
create. They must submit an application to the Etsy team to make
sure the manufacturer meets Etsy's ethical guidelines.

Dickerson said the changes are in part a response to sellers who
say that the site's restrictions have made growing their
businesses -- or in some cases, even meeting current demand --
impossible.

When the policy changes go into effect in January 2014, all
sellers will be required to disclose their employees and share
whether they are using manufacturing services on their listing
pages. Etsy will also be redesigning seller pages.

Transparency, Dickerson and the panel of Etsy staff reiterated,
is at the heart of keeping the community spirit alive on Etsy.
Dickerson outlined principals that describe Etsy's new definition
of "handmade":

1. Authorship. Items sold in the handmade
marketplace must have been designed by the shop owner (even if a
team of people helps create them).

2. Responsibility. The shop's owner has to know
how the items are being produced during every step of the
processes.

3. Transparency. Sellers must disclose who is
involved in making the items they sell and where they are
located.

Etsy reiterated that sellers in its handmade marketplace cannot
"re-sell" a product, meaning they can't take a new, finished
product they had no role in creating and sell it to someone else
unchanged.

The announcement of the changes raised a lot of concerns among
sellers at the event and online, with over a thousand questions
pouring in following the announcements. The primary concerns were
that sellers with outside help would have a competitive advantage
over smaller sellers unable to afford such help and that the
distinction between the two wouldn't be prominently displayed for
buyers to distinguish the difference.
Concerns over the use of overseas manufactures, and the
authenticity of the Etsy mission have been ongoing as the site
expands.

So is Etsy selling out? Some handmade purists may fear that is
the direction these changes may take the site, which has over 1
million active sellers, but Dickerson asserts that Etsy is
staying true to its quirky maker roots. "I don't want to be the
CEO who turns Etsy into eBay. Etsy is fundamentally a creative
community, and eBay is not."